Month: April 2014

Ok. It’s been more than a minute since I’ve managed a post. As usual, lots to say, and too many words to say it all.. or something. I’m working on a post with the necessary medical updates, but it is coming rather slowly, and in the mean time, there is something more time sensitive that I need to share. Many of you have written comments or emails reassuring me that I don’t NEED to write. That I should only write if and when it is of benefit to me in some way. Still others have written to say, “please please.. it doesn’t have to be a lot.. just anything you think of. Put it up there!”

While I appreciate the sentiment of both, neither really hits its head on the nail of the issue at hand (so to speak). At some point along the line, enough people started to follow this blog that I began to feel a certain debt of gratitude, and with it a duty to fulfill what for me had become an unspoken mission statement: To faithfully report the progress of this brutal disease and to do so with as much honesty as I could muster. To put it all out in the open without getting caught up in how embarrassing, graphic, or scary elements of it might be.

SO! I’ve got an overdue post in the works that I’ve been having a pretty difficult time getting onto the page. Occasionally, though, this blog serves a different master. Occasionally, (for shame, Ezra!) I take advantage of the fact that the blog gets a rather surprising number of views to put something out there that I think deserves the attention. In this case, that something is the ongoing story of my good friend Bobby Earle O’Brien and his 2014 Boston Marathon bid.

To Recap. Bobby Earle (who some of you will remember from a rather extraordinary act of generosity a little over a year ago wherein he donated a NEW Industry 9 29er wheelset for the UTA, just in case the corporate sponsors didn’t come through in time) decided, despite swearing that the 2009 marathon would be his last, that he would run 2014 anyway. WHY!? I’ll let him explain.

Here’s where the comedy of errors begins, however. During a workout in early February, Bobby sustained some sort of mysterious injury in his left Quad region, had to stop the workout prematurely and wound up in a walk in clinic where he was handed some crutches but not given any kind of conclusive diagnosis. When he did finally get to see his orthopaedic surgeon (the man has had quite a number of surgeries) and the appropriate tests were done, the conclusion was a stress reaction.. Something that would have become a full blown stress fracture if he had continued to work out on that unlucky day. The recovery was going to entail 4 weeks of rest. The good news was that he had already done 2 of these weeks just waiting around for the diagnosis, the bad news, of course, was that this ultimately would mean one month of training taken out of what was less than a 3 month preparation to begin with! The two weeks passed and he eased back into training only to break a toe a couple of weeks later.

Miraculously, though, on March 29th, Bobby was able to do the final long training run (22 miles) with the rest of the Dana Farber Challenge crew (this is mystifying to me). And since then he has been enjoying taper time (A term that will mean something to runners out there perhaps). Again best to let Bobby describe that AND the long training run himself.

Due to some of the medical issues that I’ve been having trouble getting on the page, I have been unable to cheer lead quite as I had intended as Bobby’s preparations went along, and now we’re finding ourselves just a week away from the marathon with a fair amount of fundraising left to do. Bobby sailed past the Dana Farber Challenge fundraising goal, but his own goal was quite a bit more ambitious. And since Bobby is running this thing in my honor, I feel some responsibility to help plug for the cause. Please check out his blog for the marathon, and even more important at this late stage, check out his fundraising page!!

Thank you all for any help you’re able to give, and watch here for an update coming soon, explaining where things stand for me these days.